A touch of morning sun shines through the shade of the trees in the yard, and the dew on the grass in the yard looks so crystal clear in the sunlight. A few hens cooed and walked around, and from time to time a hen picked up a green worm in the haystack, which immediately attracted a fierce scramble from the rest of the hens.

Anda Fifteen sat on the wooden pier at the door, looking out of the door. His Tatanian wife was busy in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for him. The breakfast staple is a thick porridge made from extravagant and expensive rice, as well as eggs, grilled sausages, cheese and refreshing pickles.

Such a breakfast, even in the affluent Oriental Port, is not something that ordinary people can afford. Don't say anything else, let's just talk about the rice, don't look at Ping'an Town is currently the only rice producing area in the country, but the local rice growers generally do not have the blessing to eat what they grow.

For no other reason, in a country where potatoes are still the staple food, the price of flour and rice is surprisingly expensive. The common people were reluctant to eat it themselves, so they sold it to the port of Orient, where the dignitaries and nobles spent a lot of money to buy a lot of good La Plata beef and cocoa powder that the children loved in the market.

None of this is a problem for Chubb XV, though. This former Japanese down-and-out samurai, who participated in two privateer operations with the navy and is now the deputy director of the police station in Coal River Township (where the coal mine is located, and was upgraded to a township after the population exceeded 1,000), and the deputy commander of the militia company, is now a master who is not short of money.

After receiving the privateering bonus issued by the navy that year, he did not choose to redeem the land like everyone else, but invested in his oil mill in Ping'an Town with his friendship with Xu Wenxuan. And then with a couple of old brothers from the police station. Some Guarani were hired. Grapes are planted on the sandy land of the island in the middle of the coal river to make wine. The harvest is very rewarding.

These two successful investments made his assets suddenly widen up from others. Today, these two investments have brought him no less than 200 yuan a year, making him a well-known and wealthy man.

But the abundance of life did not satisfy him.

After the local Guarani tribe was suppressed and relocated, the rest of the people have always been honest, so his usual police career is a bit idle. Report to the office on time every morning, then take a few older brothers around the awe-inspiring gaze of the local Guarani, and then nothing else.

He felt tired of this kind of life. Only the twice-weekly military training of the militia could give him a hint of excitement in training. As the deputy company commander, he trained the group of mud-legged people to scream. And in the personal skill competition, whether it is hand-to-hand combat, cold weapon fighting, or flintlock shooting, the only one who can make him bow down is his longevity Taoist.

The situation that had been deteriorating with the British in recent months had reached the remote town of Coal River, where the daily preaching team preached on the small square of the town's market about the corruption, greed, and wickedness of the British, and their shameless obstruction of normal trade in the East Coast Republic. Blaming the British for the recent domestic price hikes and commodity shortages has aroused the resentment of many people towards the British, including many immigrants from England in the first place.

The heads of the villages, production teams, factories, and mines also held meetings at the end of three days to instill in their subordinates the criminal acts committed by the shameless British, especially the piracy of the Clifford fleet off the Chesapeake Bay in the fog that attacked our normal "peaceful merchant fleet" was repeatedly mentioned. All of this made Anda XV smell something unusual, perhaps...... Going to war?

Come to think of it. Anda Fifteen couldn't help but feel a burst of excitement, I really am not willing to be lonely.

"Husband. Time to eat. His Tatartan wife, speaking a slightly strange Chinese, brought breakfast to him. Then the Tatar woman went to the back room, took out the two sleepy-eyed children, and urged them to clean their mouths with tooth powder.

Anda fifteen gulped a hearty breakfast. The refreshing pickles were served with sticky rice porridge, and Anda Fifteen Sili gulped down two large bowls in one go, then sighed contentedly, and then slowly ate the grilled sausages and eggs.

The sound of horses' hooves approached. Anda Fifteen looked up in surprise, only to see a man in a blue uniform riding a tall Lucitano horse on the path in the field in the distance outside the door.

"It's the postman!" Anda Fifteen quickly recognized it, and he felt his heart beat suddenly, and there was a faint sense of excitement in his mind.

The postman skillfully reined in the horses, then quickly dismounted and shouted into the house: "Coal River Village, Mr. Anda Fifteen, there is your letter, issued from the War Department of Dongfang Port. ”

"War Department!" Anda XV jumped to his feet excitedly, walked to the door, strode upright, and then solemnly accepted a letter from the postman with both hands, as if it were his superior officer.

"To the Army Reserve, Mr. Anda XV: In view of the vicious piracy practices of unscrupulous enterprises such as the East India Company of the Kingdom of England, the Merchant Adventure Company, and the Virginia Company, which have seriously damaged the interests of the nation and seriously disturbed the normal life of the people. In order to combat the enemy's war potential, the Joint Staff Headquarters decided to take drastic measures to call up veterans for demobilization in the army. After receiving the letter, please gather and report to the Army Temporary Charge d'Affaires Office at the Zhenhaibao Pier Playground before March 31, 1637. The interests of the country cannot be violated, and I hope that you will fight bravely for the well-being of the republic. In addition, with this card, you can take a car and boat in China for free. Anda XV opened the envelope, and inside was a call-up letter issued by the War Department, which detailed the time and place of reporting.

"Good work." Anda XV bowed to the postman, and then solemnly tucked the call letter into his underwear pocket.

"It's my job." The young Tatartan postman smiled, "My brother has also been drafted into the army. He rode well, even better than the bragging Cossacks, and now he was an honorable cavalry corporal, and he was the pride of our family. Come on, Mr. Anda Fifteen! The village chief said that these English people are even more hateful than the Polish lord who used to oppress us in his hometown, kill them! ”

"Kill them!" Anda Fifteen waved his right hand, clenched into a fist, and his thoughts quickly drifted to the battlefield filled with shouts and explosions.

……

Zhenhae Fort Naval Base.

Navy Minister Wang Qinian stood on the pier pier in his navy autumn uniform, accompanied by local government officials, shipyard officials, and a group of naval officers.

At the mouth of the narrow Duck Lake, two slender warships sailed towards the harbor one after the other. These are two "Yangwu"-class fast cruisers that have just returned from participating in the third sea trial -- "Yangwu" and "Yangwei". With a standard displacement of 525 tons, the hull looks more slender than a traditional Galen, with a length-to-width ratio of more than five to one.

In order to reduce the drag when sailing, a group of people from the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Natural Sciences repeatedly calculated and simulated a large number of ship types, and finally decided on the shape of the ship. There is no way, there is a shortage of people who can design ships, let alone these 17th-century sailboats. Over the years, many of them have followed the Flemish shipbuilders from Europe to build ships for a few years, and now they have a little idea of the sailing design of this era.

After having a certain amount of practical experience and theoretical foundation, a group of "mathematicians" who had spent several years in the shipyard finally decided on the type of the "Yangwu" class fast cruiser after repeated calculations, simulations, and a large number of model verifications. Not only was the hull slender, but the designers had adopted a design similar to the scissor bow of later ships, abandoning the traditional wide Galen sailing design.

It's just that this kind of bow is not a complete scissor bow. In order to maintain the stability of the vessel, the designers did not dare to make extensive changes to the traditional Galen ship, and the bow architecture remained, but was greatly reduced and reduced. And the Flemish boatmen insisted that such a structure, although less prone to the waves than the hollow bow, was much more stable.

They had built the Galen all their lives, and the slender hull with the length-to-width ratio enlarged to five to one already made them worry about whether the ship would be able to sail steadily, let alone the revolutionary design of the hollow bow, and they could not accept such drastic changes. Of course, the designers don't know how to design the flying clippers, so they can only explore slowly.

The three-masted sailing ship still operated on a cross-sail and reached a speed of 7 knots in standard sea conditions, and was even able to reach a very high speed of 9-10 knots when the wind was blowing. This speed really stood out among the sail galen ships with a general speed of 3-4 knots, so the Admiralty officials were quite fond of this kind of boat.

Each Yangwu-class ship has a crew of 142 (excluding the accompanying army) and is equipped with eight 24-pounder cannons, eight 18-pounder cannons, twelve 12-pounder long/short-barreled guns, and eight 8-pounder short-barreled cannons (firing grape bombs and explosive shells).

"This kind of fast cruiser with fast speed and firepower will definitely surprise those English buns in a naval battle." Wang Qinian thought secretly. He looked up at the overcast sky in the distance, where the seagulls were flying low, and there was not a hint of wind on the sea, it was the calm before the storm. (To be continued......)